When Shabbos arrives, there is a wedding in heaven. It is 26 hours long, from the beginning of kabbalas Shabbos until Havdalah, and one must participate in this wedding, with the songs and dancing that are taking place in heaven. When we recite Lecha Dodi at the beginning of Shabbos, HaKadosh Baruch Hu immediately enters Gan Eden and dances with the tzaddikim. All Shabbos long, c’viyachol, Hashem dances with the tzaddikim, with all the angels in Gan Eden, and everyone dances around HaKadosh Baruch Hu and says “This is Hashem to whom we hoped; let us exult and be glad in His salvation” (Yeshiah 25:9). And everyone will look at Hashem face to face, and everyone will be nourished from the clarity of the bright shining light (from the clear lens - אספקלריא המאירה). Everything that we have on Shabbos, the whole joy of Shabbos, is drawn from the joy of the dancing and music of HaKadosh Baruch Hu with the tzaddikim in Gan Eden. The simcha in heaven filters down to our world.

   The Rebbe said that Shabbos is literally like a wedding—a unique wedding. It’s a grand and important wedding where everyone comes and dances. But the problem is that not everyone is able to get into the hall. The hall will not hold everyone. Just like the weddings of Admorim in which 30,000, 40,000, even 50,000 chassidim attend—some climb on the windows, some stand on the rooftops with binoculars watching the great joy of the chuppah or the dancing of the chassan. Everyone is looking for some kind of opening or crack to peer through—from some rooftop maybe they will be able to see some of the joy of the wedding. Maybe they’ll catch a glimpse of some of the dancing.

   The Rebbe says that Shabbos is like a wedding, but who knows who will merit seeing the joy of Shabbos? Who will merit seeing the wondrous joy of Shabbos, the infinite joy of Shabbos? “…what an incredible privilege it is even just to be able to stand outside and peek through a curtain, through the tiniest crack and to be able to watch what is going on inside!” Because Shabbos is only for dancing, singing and joy. When Shabbos arrives a person should be happy, and he should dance and sing. The holy Shabbos is unending joy, limitless joy. It is forbidden for a person to have even a fleeting thought of sadness or worry on Shabbos. The essence of Judaism depends on this. The more a person is happy on Shabbos, the more he dances on Shabbos, this is what determines how much G-dly light he will merit during his week. The G-dly light enlightens a person through the joy that he has on Shabbos. A person is not allowed to be miserable and depressed on Shabbos. He shouldn’t worry—“as if he had completed absolutely everything that he had to do” (Rashi on Shemos 20:8). Baruch Hashem that no one is in jail. No one has been taken captive. Everyone has, Baruch Hashem, two challos and a cup of wine for Kiddush.

   When a person says “Vayachulu” he is saying the ten ma’amaros. Vayachulu includes everything, all the accountings, all the worries, all the plans. When Shabbos Kodesh arrives, it is forbidden for a person to make any plans about what he might do during the coming week. He should have no thoughts about what will be during the week. When Shabbos arrives, let Hashem take care of everything. If a person thinks on Shabbos, “What will be?” then they say in heaven, “OK. Let it be like he thinks.” Why are you doing Hashem’s accounting? You are ruining all the plans of Hashem Yisborach. Hashem has infinite potential, an infinite ability to bestow good than upon a person. He wants to give you everything. He wants to overwhelm you with good. Hashem wants to give a person all the bounty in the world. But if a person thinks on Shabbos, “What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we eat on Sunday? What will be on Monday? What will we eat on Tuesday?” Then they say to him, “OK. Whatever you think, that’s what we’ll give you. You will receive according to your own understanding.” But if you don’t think and you don’t ask “What will be? What will be on Sunday, on Monday…” but rather, fortify yourself with joy, then you will have such bounty, such salvation—things you never even hoped for. Things you never expected. Salvation you never even dreamt of. You can not imagine what bounty Hashem has to give you. But you must rejoice on Shabbos Kodesh and to really, truly be filled with unlimited happiness, an unending and boundless joy. Of course, you shouldn’t lose control. But you can only draw the holiness of Shabbos and the G-dly light of Shabbos down through the vessel of joy.

   Shabbos arrives. Everyone is singing. Everyone is dancing with their children. Everyone: Admorim, Rabbanim, Rashei Yeshivos. Everyone is sitting for three to four hours at the Shabbos table and singing with their children. And the children give over divrei Torah, chidushim. Children feel the oneg Shabbos, feel desire to be chareidim, desire to be yireh shamayim. The Shabbos table is the opening to everything in the world, all the salvation. When a person sits with his children and sings with them, that is where the children get their desire for holiness from, their desire for Torah, for prayer and yiras shamayim, also their love for their mother and father. You don’t sing? Then your Shabbos is not Shabbos! If a person doesn’t sing the zemiros, then what will you do if your son goes of the derech, chas v’shalom? If a family doesn’t sing the Shabbos zemiros, then the kids start wandering around because they don’t have anything to do, and then they go outside and hear not nice things and they go and meet bad friends and they themselves then ruin other friends. The child sees that his father isn’t praying, isn’t happy. He doesn’t sing the Shabbos songs, and so the child goes and does aveiros. When Shabbos arrives, a child must see that his father is singing and yearning and delighting in Shabbos, and then he too will get a taste for Shabbos, a taste for life. Now is the time for zemiros, singing. We sing zemiros for an hour and then the children are enlivened. They laugh and are happy. If a child sings for an hour with his father on Shabbos, then in this merit he can hold out for the whole week. Then if he happens to meet a bad friend, he will say, “Get away from me. What? Do you want to destroy me?” If a child sees his father sitting peacefully, singing zemiros, he will have such a good feeling in his heart and he will be so secure that this is his life, this is his joy, and then he won’t be interested in the street and all its emptiness. What more does a child need than this? The minimum requirement of Judaism is to sing the Shabbos songs. Without this one hasn’t even begun!

   They asked the father of Rebbe David from Lelov how he merited to have such a great son. He said that when he would come to the line of the Shabbos zemiros that said “You should merit seeing your children and your children’s children fulfilling the Torah and mitzvos” he would sing it over and over with tears in his eyes, with such a deveikus, for at least half an hour, that he should merit to see his children and grandchildren going this way. A father wants that his child will not cut off his paos! Why shouldn’t he cut off his paos? What does he see his father doing? His father sleeps on Shabbos, eats and sleeps and eats and sleeps again, chalila. If he would see his father singing with a lot of enthusiasm and dancing with his children and getting them excited, then no child would cut off his paos, no child would look to the street, because even children want to serve Hashem. It’s just that they don’t see any avodas Hashem. So if a person will sing with deveikus, and sing, “I should merit seeing my children and children’s children” then he and his children and his grandchildren will go with paos, study Torah and do mitzvos.

Prayer

   Master of the World, please help me to merit to keep Shabbos with all its rules and details, that I should always merit to receive Shabbos with holiness and purity, joy and elation, with song, and melody and dancing. And I should sing zemiros with enthusiasm always, and not miss out on any of the Shabbos songs or the Motzei Shabbos songs, because all the bounty and salvations come from this. 

B’Ohr Pnei HaMelech Chaim

   A Jew must yearn to come closer to Hashem, to look for Hashem’s light. How does he do this? By brightening the face of his friend. This is especially true when a person really doesn’t feel like talking to his friend, but when he sees him from afar, instead of running to the other side of the street, he goes over to him and says something nice instead.

   It is crucially important to speak nicely at home, even to just smile a lot. And when the other doesn’t know how to give, he should teach him, and try to create a good atmosphere. At home, he should give compliments and show enthusiasm for what is going on with his family. A person who only complains, mentioning only what he didn’t get or what others didn’t do for him—you didn’t treat me nicely or you didn’t look at me, etc.—then he is just like the Dead Sea, chas v’shalom. But a person who sees only the good, then everything that happens to him and everything that he has or receives, everything that he feels, and everything that influences him from above and from every direction, he knows how to return, to give, to give a good feeling to his spouse, his children, his neighbors, his parents, his in-laws, and also to Hashem. It is a great merit for a person to give back to whoever gives to him, and thus influence his surroundings to the good. Then he is like the water of Lake Tiberius , wonderful sweet water.

   The wisdom is in giving with a full heart, just like when Hashem gives us—like with fruit for instance. What an exquisite pleasure is hidden within fruit. Fruit is not essential for the world’s existence. One can live without fruit. They are not part of the primary food groups. We don’t need to have fruit. We can get the nourishment we need without eating fruit. Fruit is the love that Hashem has for us. It is an exquisite pleasure that Hashem give us. It’s like when a mother gives her son a pekeleh because he was a good boy. Hashem created fruit with the sole purpose of making us happy. So many different varieties and shapes—to decorate the earth, to enhance the heart’s desire, to give us all the different tastes. In order that we also should behave benevolently. Just as Hashem gives us such sweetness, such bounty, such variety, so should we merit hosting guests with a full heart, and giving tzedaka to someone not only so that he should have bread and water but so that he should have everything, just like Hashem has a good eye to give us everything. And when we give in such a way, the receiver will feel our good intentions, he will feel the G-dly light in that which he received.